Clint Eastwood He has earned on his own merits to be considered one of the great Hollywood filmmakers. In addition, he is still active despite the fact that he will be 93 years old this coming May 31, so the Hollywood Academy is still in time to give him another Oscar, an award he last won in 2005 thanks to ‘Million Dollar Baby’, a great drama that can now be seen for free for a limited time on RTVE Play.
Counting on the occasion with a script written by paul haggis from a novel written by FX TooleEastwood here gave shape to a sports drama that on paper could have been limited to telling us the story of how the veteran owner of a gym helps a boxer fulfill her dream of making a name for herself in the ring.
A right to the heart
Obviously, that sport plays a fundamental role in ‘Million Dollar Baby’, but it is a film that transcends the importance of boxing to offer us a very human account of the friendship that arises between the characters played to perfection by Hilary Swank and Eastwood himself. From there, a film is built that balances very well the search for a dream with other dramatic elements before something happens that changes everything forever.
Many others would then have lost control of the situation to offer a purely tearjerker view of the story with which to try to destroy the hearts of viewers, but Eastwood explores the moral dilemma that is presented to his character in a masterful way to round off one of his best and most emotional works both in front of and behind the cameras.
By the way, there is another universe in which ‘Million Dollar Baby’ never reached Eastwood’s hands, since Isabel Coixet he was about to take care of her. The director of ‘Nieva en Benidorm’ recalled a few years ago that she left the project because they wanted to impose Sandra Bullock as the lead and she wanted Swank, but the producers ignored her and instead “they did pay attention to a gentleman“…
In the event that you want to (re) see ‘Million Dollar Baby’, I remind you that it will be available there for free until next February 28. Once that date has passed, you will also find it on Amazon Prime Video, on Fubotv and on Movistar+, but there you will have to go through the box.
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